There’s just one more review left from the first wave of Aliens Minimates! You might not quite realize at first glance, but this particular set is one of those rare instances of two female characters packed together. Of course, one of them is wearing heavy body armor and the other has that whole chest burster thing going on, so it might be easy to miss. Still, it’s at least a little nifty. So, let’s have a look at the Colonial Marines’ resident field medic, Cpl. Cynthia Dietrich and her pack mate, the ill-fated Mary.

Packaging

Dietrich and Mary are packaged in the standard blister-style pack that’s used for all the figures in this wave. It fits the aesthetic of the film pretty well, and does a nice job of showcasing the figures inside the package. Like some of the other sets in this wave, the glue on this pack’s bubble was a little on the weak side, so the card was already separating when I got it.

The Figures

Cpl. Dietrich

Dietrich is one of the Marines in the film who’s easy to overlook if you aren’t paying super close attention. She’s got a few scenes of note, but she fades into the background when compared to the more cartoonish personalities of characters like Ferro or Drake. Still, the team would hardly be complete without her, so here she is.

Dietrich is pretty much the same as the other Marines when it comes to construction. She features the same helmet, body armor, and boots/shin guards as Weizbowski, Hicks, and Apone. The sculpts of these pieces are just as well handled here as they were on the other figures, so no complaints there. As an added bonus, the slightly long hair visible at the back of the helmet doesn’t look quite as out of place here, which is good.

The paint on Dietrich is pretty much on par with the rest of the Marines we’ve seen so far. Overall, it’s not bad, but there are a few issues here and there. The torso armor is probably the worst, with some sloppy paint on the buckles near the top and an off-center name “tag.” The camo application under the armor is essentially the same as what we saw on Hicks. The lack of camo on the backs of the legs is still a little glaring, but it is what it is. It’s nice to see that they’ve given Dietrich a different set of detail lines on her torso to indicate her gender a bit better. It seems like a given, but it would have been easy for DST to overlook it. Dietrich’s face is rather generic, though, to DST’s credit, actress Cynthia Dale Scott doesn’t have the most distinctive face either, so it’s a reasonable approximation.

For her accessories, Cpl. Dietrich includes an alternate hair piece, a pulse rifle, and a clear display stand. The hair piece was originally used for Tomb Raider’s Roth, and it’s not one of my favorites. It seems too short on the top and too bunchy at the sides for Dietrich. I almost feel like she’d look better with something closer to what we saw with Hicks.

Dietrich is an alright figure, but she’s not a terribly interesting one. The Marine armor is still cool, but she’s the Marine in this wave with the least character, which doesn’t do her a whole lot of favors.

MMC Score – 6 out of 10

Colonist Mary

We don’t see much of the colonists in Aliens. Heck, in the theatrical cut of the film, we really don’t see them at all, except for poor Mary here. She only speaks three words and has less than a minute of screen time, but she does an amazing job of reestablishing for the audience just how frightening the life cycle of the Xenomorphs truly is. As a result, she’s pretty darn memorable. Add in that her small part is one of the few times that Dietrich gets any sort of focus in the movie, and you’ve got a pretty great second half to this set.

Mary’s construction consists of the basic Minimate body with two sculpted add-ons: a hairpiece, and a chest burster. The hair is one we’ve seen a few times before. To be truly movie accurate, it should probably look a little more wet, but it works well enough as a re-use. We first saw the chest burster piece in the Alien boxed set. It’s pretty well sculpted piece. The collar portion of it is maybe a touch on the bulky side, but it works pretty well, and does an effective job of translating the rather gory design of the film to a more mass market-friendly look.

The paint is definitely a big piece of what makes Mary…Mary. She actually exhibits some of the best work from the wave. Everything is applied pretty well, with no real issues with bleed over or fuzzy line work. She’s got the appropriate level of grime, and they’ve even gone the extra mile to give her a properly sickly-looking skin tone. Throw in an expression with just the right level of “I so wish I weren’t here” and you’ve got a pretty great summation of Mary from the movie.

As far as accessories go, Mary’s only extra is a clear display stand. It kind of would have been nice to get some sort of bit of hive wall to have her stuck to, but that would undoubtedly have to be an all-new piece, and I imagine the budget was already pretty high on this wave.

Mary’s actually a surprisingly well put together figure. Still not super exciting, but to an Aliens geek like me, she’s actually pretty cool.

MMC Score – 7 out of 10

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